At least one fossil fuel ally in Congress is worried Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce could undermine oil and natural gas development. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said it will take adequate staffing to fulfill the president’s promise to lift restrictions on fossil fuel development, mining and logging on federal lands, writes Andres Picon. Murkowski, a senior appropriator whose home state has one of the highest number of federal employees per capita, told Andy that she brought those concerns last week to Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy. “I said, ‘We’re going to need help from you, because in order for us to move forward with these projects, we have to have folks at [the Bureau of Land Management] and within some of the other federal agencies there to do the permitting,’” Murkowski recounted telling Miller. Murkowski said Miller told her that agency heads will work to avoid having resignations undermine Trump’s executive orders. But on Tuesday, the Trump administration sent an email urging the bulk of the federal workforce (some 2 million people) to resign by Sept. 30. Employees who accept the offer by Feb. 6 won’t be fired or asked to return to the office, the email said. There is no way of knowing, of course, which federal workers will stay and which will go. It’s also unclear whether the offer is legal or enforceable — creating a chaotic environment of uncertainty at every level of government, writes Eli Stokols. “What if a third of the nation’s air traffic controllers take this buyout? Or all the CDC scientists leave for the private sector and then there’s a tuberculosis epidemic?” said Elaine Kamarck, a former Clinton administration official with the Brookings Institution. “That’s the risk with the way they’ve done it, sort of using a blowtorch for a very small issue.” Karmack’s comments came before last night’s fatal crash between a regional American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army helicopter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration has suffered a staffing shortage for years. Multiple Republican appropriators suggested Wednesday they were not clear on whether the president’s deferred-resignation severance package is legal or constitutional. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said Democratic leaders were “looking into” the legality of the administration’s proposal. Trump’s offer stated that employees would be paid until Sept. 30 “regardless of your daily workload,” while an internal memo to agencies said employees who accepted the “deferred resignation” would be put on paid administrative leave. Many federal employees have privately and publicly expressed a distrust that Trump will uphold his end of the resignation bargain, and others say they feel more committed to their posts now than ever. “I’d rather be fired for resisting and making their lives hell,” one Labor Department employee said.
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